Progress on this toy must seem glacial, but we finally have most of them tested, finished and packed to ship.
Here's what the final version looks like.
The control wires look long, but that's so it can be routed piggyback onto the radio's existing wire harness, and zip-tied to it. There is a tempation to just run the control wires across the inside of the radio, directly from the module to the SWR Cal control. But the extra length doesn't affect performance, and there is no easy way to secure the wires running them directly across that side of the radio. Shorter wires are not an advantage if they vibrate loose from the normal stresses of a mobile environment.
It may be easier to remove the three wires from the radio's SWR Cal control, remove the new one from the white wires and hook them up to the factory control.
Or it may seem easier to dismount the factor SWR Cal control, tape it and secure it inside. The new control should fit the front panel and knob of all the 40-channel Cobra 29-type radios I have seen.
Just simplifies the whole proposition of making this toy work if we include a new control.
Don't know how many people will use it, or clip the wires, strip them and solder to the factory control.
For years now, my attitude about this has been to include a part if it makes the installation easier. A part is nearly always cheaper than the labor to help solve an installation problem down the line.
I'll sell a single quantity of it by First-Class mail for 35 bucks prepaid. By the time it gets to Ebay the price will be closer to 40.
Yeah that's kinda high. But so is my overhead.
Deduct 5 bucks per additional item for quantities of 2 or more. Costs roughly the same to ship two or more as it does to ship one.
It came about to save labor in my shop. If the labor it saves you isn't worth that much, they won't sell terribly well.
But hey, if everybody says "That's too much" and walks away they'll get used here in customer's radios.
PM me with the email addy that serves as your PayPal member ID if you're interested.
73
